NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1524615
August-September 2024 • Nebraskaland 53 a creek chub on both Bone Creek and Sand Draw and a western blacknose dace on Willow Creek. The latter, Spooner said, could only have moved via the ladder. "That's not to say that fi sh moved and didn't continue on up the stream out of our sampling site," Spooner said, noting that fi sh may have also swam up the ladder and returned downstream. "I think these fi sh we were sampling move a lot more than we think throughout the seasons, so the chances of recapturing them was minimal at most." More Studies, More Questions The effects of stream fragmentation on native fish are being studied throughout the world, but Wessel said there is still much to be learned about fish in the Great Plains. Studies like this one, she said, leave biologists asking questions, like why were the fish trying to go up stream, what triggered the movement, and how different would the fish communities be on these streams if everything could get upstream that wanted to? It also has them asking which fragmented streams could benefit most from fish ladders. Wessel and Spooner are now looking for those streams, as well as stream restoration projects to address erosion below barriers. Work will likely focus on the Niobrara River basin, which is home to a high percentage of both cool-water streams and imperiled fish species. A stream with rare native fish, and lacking non- native species, where several barriers could be bridged with ladders to reconnect several miles of streams, would be ideal. South Dakota State has resumed fish ladder research and is looking at ways to use pit tag readers to monitor fish movement that would provide more reliable data. Facilitating fish movement throughout fragmented streams could become increasingly important as climate change progresses. Warming temperatures could increase the use of groundwater, which is the primary source for all of the state's cool-water streams. Further declines could reduce stream flow and increase water temperature. If a section of stream were to dry up above a perched culvert, there would be no way fish could repopulate it on their own, Spooner said. "I'll guarantee we'd be very, very hard pressed to find any stream in Nebraska that doesn't have two or three significant barriers along it somewhere," Wessel said. "Some fish are going to be able to make those small leaps, but we have some that are probably just quite terrible jumpers. Even where it is just a small drop, that can still mean something for some species." And for species like the blacknose shiner and Topeka shiner, listed as endangered in Nebraska, the threatened finescale and northern redbelly dace, or the northern pearl dace, western blacknose dace, plains topminnow and other species at risk of making those lists, something could mean everything. N Biologists Emily Clark, Kali Boroughs and Marcila Goben sample fish below a culvert on Bone Creek west of Ainsworth.